My Online Pet Peeves
Aside from the usual suspects of multiple pop-up adverts that never seem to stop and flash-based adverts that look integrated within the web page but manage to float around and suddenly enlarge to cover up the entire article, I have a couple other pet peeves that I wonder if anybody else shares my frustration.
As you may already know, I am a member of the social networking sites MySpace and Facebook. I have yet to leverage their potential to meet other girls, and I sometimes wonder why I'm on MySpace period. As for Facebook, most of my friends are mostly all high school friends with whom I have lost touch in over 10 years and finally reconnected.
Anyway, Facebook allows you to access their speed-centric version of the website for free when you visit their site from a cell phone. Likewise, you get to choose between that and the full-blown version of the website if you have a smart enough smartphone like my Nokia N91 or the Apple iPhone. But MySpace? Unless you're lucky like me and other advanced Nokia and iPhone owners, you can't even get to MySpace by mobile means! Instead, you have to pay three dollars a month to Cingular-is-now-the-new-AT&T to get the watered-down version of MySpace! This pet peeve is such because of two reasons: 1) same reason as that of reason number eight of why I hate the iPhone, and 2) have you noticed how heavily subsidized MySpace is by advertisements?!? Why would anyone still want to pay three bucks after having to put up with the gazillion adverts that litter MySpace? I'm not targeting MySpace, but using it as a prime example of the many other websites that have this kind of business practices.
The second online pet peeve is how they collect information when you register for things online. This morning, I tried to register in a Sweepstakes at Mercury for some neat prizes, but I was having a difficulty submitting the registration form. Click on the picture below to see the full details of the "error" and the form I was submitting (personal data changed to protect my privacy):
What in the name of hell is that error all about? There is no red asterisk next to the email address field, meaning that field is not a requirement. I filled that in so that I could get notified by email if I win. But what prevented me from submitting the form was that I had to click on the checkbox asking if I want to be notified of new product information, offers and incentives! What? Why even provide the choice of opting out if I am being forced into it just so I can enter some stupid sweepstakes? This kind of marketing practice is not limited to sweepstakes administered for huge companies like Ford's Mercury. Remember the Put a Gun to My Head, Won't You blog in which I was forced to receive information from LaSalle Bank? That was while trying to register to run in the Shamrock Shuffle 8K race, which happened to be sponsored by LaSalle Bank! Let's see... If you want to participate in a race sponsored by us, you must endure the bombardment of product and service offerings literature from us! No if's, and's, or but's!
Oh, I can only feel my blood pressure rising, thanks to some shrewd marketing kid who don't know how to make good adverts in the first place and must resort to such brute force. Sigh...
As you may already know, I am a member of the social networking sites MySpace and Facebook. I have yet to leverage their potential to meet other girls, and I sometimes wonder why I'm on MySpace period. As for Facebook, most of my friends are mostly all high school friends with whom I have lost touch in over 10 years and finally reconnected.
Anyway, Facebook allows you to access their speed-centric version of the website for free when you visit their site from a cell phone. Likewise, you get to choose between that and the full-blown version of the website if you have a smart enough smartphone like my Nokia N91 or the Apple iPhone. But MySpace? Unless you're lucky like me and other advanced Nokia and iPhone owners, you can't even get to MySpace by mobile means! Instead, you have to pay three dollars a month to Cingular-is-now-the-new-AT&T to get the watered-down version of MySpace! This pet peeve is such because of two reasons: 1) same reason as that of reason number eight of why I hate the iPhone, and 2) have you noticed how heavily subsidized MySpace is by advertisements?!? Why would anyone still want to pay three bucks after having to put up with the gazillion adverts that litter MySpace? I'm not targeting MySpace, but using it as a prime example of the many other websites that have this kind of business practices.
The second online pet peeve is how they collect information when you register for things online. This morning, I tried to register in a Sweepstakes at Mercury for some neat prizes, but I was having a difficulty submitting the registration form. Click on the picture below to see the full details of the "error" and the form I was submitting (personal data changed to protect my privacy):
What in the name of hell is that error all about? There is no red asterisk next to the email address field, meaning that field is not a requirement. I filled that in so that I could get notified by email if I win. But what prevented me from submitting the form was that I had to click on the checkbox asking if I want to be notified of new product information, offers and incentives! What? Why even provide the choice of opting out if I am being forced into it just so I can enter some stupid sweepstakes? This kind of marketing practice is not limited to sweepstakes administered for huge companies like Ford's Mercury. Remember the Put a Gun to My Head, Won't You blog in which I was forced to receive information from LaSalle Bank? That was while trying to register to run in the Shamrock Shuffle 8K race, which happened to be sponsored by LaSalle Bank! Let's see... If you want to participate in a race sponsored by us, you must endure the bombardment of product and service offerings literature from us! No if's, and's, or but's!
Oh, I can only feel my blood pressure rising, thanks to some shrewd marketing kid who don't know how to make good adverts in the first place and must resort to such brute force. Sigh...
Labels: adverts, ethics, stupidity, technology
posted by StHalcyon at
10:51
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home